UFC 190 ‘Rousey vs. Correia’ Kountermove Preview

The UFC is back in Brazil this weekend with UFC 190 and Ronda Rousey’s sixth UFC title defense and grudge match bout against Bethe Correia. The main card is also home to the TUF Brazil 4 finales and a number of bouts featuring fighters who should maybe start thinking about retirement, the latter of which means we might see some finishes leaving us feeling sad for the loser. To get you ready for the fights on Saturday, we’ve got your regular Kountermove breakdown including two picks I like and a fighter I’m staying away from. Before we get down to business, here’s a reminder from the founders of the site on how KM works and how fights are scored for anyone who’s new to the game:

“About Kountermove.  Kountermove, Inc. is currently the world’s leading Fantasy MMA community. Kountermove is like fantasy football or baseball, but for MMA. Our founders, Aaron Ard and Brian Knapp, are Jiu-jitsu black belts and IBJJF competitors.

Pick your team of 5 fighters. You are given a “salary cap” of $25,000 in fantasy money to spend on drafting your team of fighters you expect to perform well/win.

Each fighter is assigned a price that is reflective of his or her respective odds. For example, in UFC 167: GSP cost $6,000, while Johny Hendricks cost $5,000. Since Hendricks is the underdog, he cost less than GSP.

Score Points and Win. Once the fight card begins, you accumulate points based on how well your picks performed.

Winners are determined by the most points earned – points are awarded: strikes landed, submission attempts, knockdowns, dominant positions, rounds won, and knockout or submission bonuses.

Fight statistics are provided by FightMetric LLC, the UFC’s official stats provider.”

Here are a few extra links to get you accustomed to how the site works and how performances are scored.

How it works

Scoring

Remember this is fantasy sports, so you’re not only trying to pick a winner but someone you think will finish the fight or rack up a ton of points on their way to a decision. Don’t have a Kountermove account? All it takes is about 30 seconds and an email address so don’t panic, you’ve still got time before the fights start.

Here are three quick tips for the event that will hopefully help you make some cash on Saturday:

1.   I’m going to go ahead and keep building my team around Ronda Rousey ($6,000) for the near future, and she’s the obvious top KM pick for UFC 190. She’s the closest thing to a lock as you will find in the UFC and should rack up 100+ points unless for some reason she decides to let the fight out of the first round. Even if the fight leaves the first, I see it being a dominant round followed by a finish in the second. Ronda is only getting better between each fight and is facing arguably her worst UFC opponent to this date. There are a decent number of good sub-$5,000 picks on this card that can be used to balance out Rousey’s high price tag so it would be in your best interest to build your team around the champ.

2.   There are a few good picks that hover right under the $5,000 but an even cheaper pick with some great value and a chance at an early finish is Stefan Struve ($4,400). Struve is known for a questionable chin but he’s only been knocked out in the UFC by fighters known for their punching power (Browne, Hunt, Reem). Unless Struve is significantly more shot than we thought, Big Nog shouldn’t have the power to hurt him too much and isn’t really enough of a takedown threat at this point in his career to really take advantage of his submission ability. I see Struve walking in to some competitive striking exchanges before hurting Nogueira on the feet. I think he’ll be able to get a finish early in this fight and even if he doesn’t I think he’s the much more likely winner if this fight goes to decision. For $4,400 he’s a steal unless you see Big Nog latching on an early submission which – although not impossible – isn’t a likely enough outcome to make you worry.

3.   A fighter I’m staying away from this weekend is TUF Brazil finalist Dileno Lopes ($5,300). I could really expand that and say I’m staying away from the entirety of the TUF Brazil finalists, but especially Lopes. If TUF has taught us one thing over its multiple seasons it’s how differently fighters perform between the show and actually fighting in the UFC. There is a bunch of good value throughout this card and a number of picks that could be great for your KM team. There’s no need to either A) pick the finales blind having not watched the show or B) watch the show to try to find value in any of the finalists because of how different the fighters will likely perform. Lopes should get the win but there are a number of picks that makes more sense than rolling the dice on the TUF finale.

Good luck this weekend!

Questions? Suggestions? Give me a shout on twitter @BlackEyeBowtie